Effortless Cruiser - 1948 Dodge D24 Town Sedan

A major component of the personality of this largely unrestored 1948 Dodge D24 Town Sedan is its Fluid Drive transmission

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

Even in 1948, with America still hungry for anything new with four wheels and an engine to replace the decaying wartime home-front fleet, the D24-model Dodge could hardly be considered a truly new car.
Detroit was squeezing everything it could out of its pre-war designs, and Dodge didn't even bother with the usual model-year trim-shuffling: A 1947 model simply looked like a '48 model, which looked like a First Series '49. And the mechanicals weren't overhauled, either. The D24's chassis dated to the pre-war era, the styling basics to 1941, with a transmission launched in the late 1930s, all powered by an L-head straight-six engine with its origins dating back in the 1920s. But amid this seemingly complacent carryover, we also know that Dodge had bigger things coming with the Second Series 1949 cars that the engineers were developing feverishly.
Yet some features were never duplicated by others in Detroit. Take, for example, Fluid Drive. Starting in 1939, vehicles so equipped had a standard three-speed manual transmission and clutch, but also had a fluid coupling torque converter in lieu of a conventional flywheel; there was no direct connection between the engine and the driveshaft. The only moving parts were two finned and bowl-shaped steel shells--one attached to the crankshaft, acting as an impeller, while the other attached to the driveshaft. The two parts were submerged in a couple of gallons of low-viscosity oil and never touched.
The practical effect was that, once you got going, you could drive without a clutch, even after stopping for a traffic light; a light touch on the brake while stationary and pointed uphill was enough to keep from rolling backward. On Dodges built between 1947 and 1952, the fluid coupling/three-speed manual transmission combination was standard equipment. Plus, compared to GM's fully automatic Hydra-Matic transmission (which, for the early versions, often needed rebuilds after as few as 20,000 miles), Fluid Drive was nearly maintenance-free.
Paul Ward of Phoenix, Arizona, maintains a fleet of mid-Sixties Ramblers, making the big Dodge in his collection something of an outlier. He explains, "The first old car I had that ran, back when I was about 20 years old, was a 1947 Dodge Town Sedan; one day, I had an attack of sensible and sold it. I replaced it with a 1957 Cadillac that was a pain in the rump, and always wished I hadn't gotten rid of my Dodge. Then I found this one for sale; its originality drew me to it."
The history of this particular example isn't entirely transparent. "It originally lived its life in Grass Valley, California; at least, that's what the oil stickers in the door jamb through the 1970s say. But I bought it from an older couple who lived on the Oregon coast," Paul tells us. "Even before they owned it, I'm guessing that it was well-maintained for many years."
Most of the rest is a mystery--except for that front-end shunt that, nearest we can tell, probably happened before the current owner was even born. "There are a couple of spots around the nose where you can see some paint blending--the door and fender don't line up perfectly--and you can tell that it's been in a driver's side front accident. It's been bumped, as happens to cars sometimes. But it appears to have been repaired reasonably well, considering the fix has lasted as long as it has, and the paint looks like it does." Also, the interior was reupholstered previous to Paul's ownership: The modern velour interior has been trimmed in the same maroon-and-gray pattern that the original seats would have been, we're told.
Paul has averaged driving his Dodge 500 miles a year since he bought it in 2005, and though it is mechanically unrestored, he's slowly been chipping away at a list of things that need to get sorted out. "Just after I bought it--after the usual complete changing of fluids--I ended up replacing the generator and voltage regulator; in 2006, I had the Stromberg carb and the fuel sending unit rebuilt. When I bought it, there was some sort of split exhaust manifold with a dual exhaust system on it, and the split manifold broke, so in 2007, I found a stock manifold and reverted to single exhaust.
"Once I did that, I cleaned up the engine, repainted it, installed a new front engine mount, rebuilt the starter and installed a new water pump, since everything was out of the car anyway, and put it all back together. Since then, all I've done is get the handbrake working and adjusted and change the oil." Next on the list: fixing the windshield wipers and the radio--and maybe lubing up some of the controls (like the gas pedal and the speedometer needle) so they don't stick.
Paul insists that simply keeping after the basics allows everything running in peak condition. "I use standard 10W-40 oil and change it once a year. Other than that, there's precious little maintenance to be done--it really hasn't needed it. I've never had to do anything with the Fluid Drive unit since getting the fluid changed just after I bought it."
In terms of keeping the exterior clean, Paul relies on Meguiar's products: a paste wax for big cleaning jobs and a spray detailer for car shows. "When it gets garage dust on it," he claims, "I just take a wet cloth and clean and dry it." The Denman four-ply wide whites get a slightly different regimen: Bleche Wite for the whitewalls, and NAPA Blue Max for the rest of the sidewall. The interior receives little more than a cursory vacuuming now and again.
We are invited for a drive. Clamber in--it's easy to do, despite the narrow-ish front door and the gigantic steering wheel that greets you; the seat cushion is at the right height, and without running boards to get in the way, you can sit first and swing your legs in later. There's the feeling of your great Aunt Helen's parlor in here--a place that was homey and charming, formal (and aging) without being fancy, and last updated sometime before you were born.
It's impossible to slump behind the wheel--the angle of the big bench seat means that you can't help but sit up straight. The huge, black Bakelite steering wheel feels as upright as the bench seat, with a horn ring that seems about as big as a more modern car's steering wheel, and the post-Art Deco brightwork flourishes are a treat, including wood-look metal that extends beyond the dash and moves around all of the door openings. Proper gauges in lieu of flashing idiot lights dot the instrument cluster. The spotlamp handle blocks the heat gauge. No two major gauges that we can see--speedometer, clock, the ancillary gauge cluster to the left of the speedometer--have the same font, making for a ragtag mix-n-match appeal. All of the knobs and strakes feel fancy, but they're caught in the transition between Art Deco and Jet Age modernism; the effect is strangely cozy. You want to curl up under a wool blanket and sit in front of a fire while in here.
Alas, the only fire here is what's under the hood. Turn the key a quarter-turn, and press the cool metal start button on the dash to the left of the steering column (no need to prime the carb with fuel by stomping on the gas yet); the starter spins the big six into life, dominating the cabin noise as it slows and stops. When it does, the smooth puttica-puttica-puttica of the L-head engine remains. Squeeze the emergency brake handle at the left to release (the Fluid Drive and lack of direct connection between engine and wheels means that simply keeping it in gear is ineffective--it'll still roll unless the emergency brake is activated), and select a gear.
With Fluid Drive, you really only need to declutch to start; it will accelerate the big Dodge in first, second or third gears without changing gear or stepping on the pedal. We tried shiftless accelerating in all three gears, as well as shifting ourselves. Without a tachometer, Paul suggests shift points at 15 and 25 MPH; the clutch takes up near the top of the pedal's travel, and the column shift is a little balky settling into first--which is down and toward you on the column--though going into second and third is no big deal. There is some driveline snatch when exchanging gears manually, which we're told is not common in these cars and needs to be sorted; it disappears entirely when the Fluid Drive is left to its own devices.
Truth be told, there isn't a massive difference in acceleration whether you choose first or second gear; even in city traffic, where we did our short drive, you don't quite become a rolling apex in second. Even if you accelerate hard in first, you lose enough momentum in the change-up to second that you almost should have just stayed in second in the first place. Unsurprisingly, third is not the gear to launch in--you don't accelerate as much as you ooze forth--but the notion that the car can pull off a third-gear start from a dead stop is impressive, no matter how long it takes. And smoothness was a key Fluid Drive attribute, well-advertised in the literature of the day. Sixty-five years on, it remains so.
What's more remarkable is that, once you're in motion, you really feel everything that's going on; the seats, floors and steering wheel are alive and chatty. Alas, like many a conversation with an old-timer, it doesn't ever quite go exactly where you want it to--the gentlest of bends requires nearly a 90-degree turn of the wheel before the nose considers responding, and the tall bias-plies don't squeal while turning but do wander badly and like to tramline every crack in the pavement that they meet. While cornering, the body doesn't tip over as badly as we've felt in other cars of the era, but then again, the slow, slack steering doesn't exactly encourage autocross-like quality turning. Yet steering at slower speeds not only felt more immediate, but also wasn't as heavy as something with a cast-iron straight-six engine over the front wheels might otherwise be. And the floor-mounted pedals remained a slight distraction; we always felt as if we were using our toe to push those big pads forward, and it never quite felt like it was enough.
At a steady 65 MPH--the fastest we dared go-- the cabin filled with the scent of fluids that only a vigorously worked engine could provide, and the gauge needles (all of them, save for the clock) were dancing. The brakes bit just fine from highway speeds and didn't fade in our mixed around-town/highway usage during the test drive.
Paul's advice for uncovering a gem like his? "Check for floorboard rust--there are little covers that go over the master cylinder and Fluid Drive; lots of times, a mechanic would tire of sealing and unsealing those covers, so they would disappear. These cars tend to rust in the floorboards where the access plates are. Also, get it inspected. Once you drive it yourself, feel how tight it is--there are always quirks to look for. Watch out for signs of age and neglect, and strange modifications too."
Some would argue that the antediluvian architecture and mechanicals made for a rugged car, although this undercut Dodge's (and Chrysler's) pro-engineering reputation. The American car-buying public cared little: Dodge was fourth in the American sales race for both 1946 and 1948, as it had been intermittently throughout the mid-1930s. After a drive in Paul Ward's unrestored 1948 Town Sedan, it's easy to understand why.
Owner's view"It's so much fun driving a car as old as my Dodge is. It's so very different from anything else on the road, and I'm forever meeting someone who had an uncle or a grandfather who had one. People don't know the D24 designation--they recognize it, but they just ask if it's a '46 or a '48 Dodge. They were all the same car; even the trim remained mostly the same. Driving a '50s or '60s-era car is one thing--they feel like a modern car. This Dodge, and others from the immediate post-war era, were entirely different animals. D24 Dodges were everywhere in the late 1940s--you can't watch a movie from the '40s that doesn't have a Dodge D24 taxi cab in it. They really were ubiquitous in those days.
--Paul Ward
1948 Dodge Town Sedan
Specifications